padam

A couple of weeks ago, I went out for the day with my grandparents. My grandfather had a reaaally bad throat - It was swollen, and he couldn't eat/drink properly and was coughing quite a bit. The next day, I hear that he was taken to hospital in an ambulance because he couldn't breathe and started to choke.

Now, this was worrying enough. But I thought - It's just a bad throat. They'll give him some antibiotics, and he'll be ok.

Then we hear that he has a throat infection, and an infection in his voice box.

Then we hear he has pneumonia, and a blood clot in one lung.

Then we hear that his kidneys have stopped functioning, and my father, uncle and grandmother are called in to the hospital before visiting hours. We think the worst - and the doctors tell my grandmother that the next two days are critical to his survival.

I spend most night thereafter with my grandmother. She's been married to my grandfather for almost 50 years, and has hardly spent a night away from him in that time, and certainly not for these kind of circumstances. She is very reliant on my grandfather, and now she is in shock, can't eat or sleep properly and she is very, very upset.

After a phonecall to the hospital one morning they tell my grandmother my grandfather has 'chronic renal failure', which makes us all very worried all over again.

Despite all of this, a week or so goes by with no new complications, and although my grandfather is very, very ill he is moved from intensive care to high dependancy, to the respitary ward.

They decide that something may be wrong with his stomach, so now he is well enough they take an x-ray. They find air bubbles on the x-ray, and decide that there may be a hole in one of his intestines, and they take him into surgery.

In surgery they find that there is indeed a hole, and what's more there is gangrene in his intestines. They do the surgery, and keep him out for the next two days. They tell us he has a 20-30% chance of survival. That was yesterday. Today they allowed him to come out of the sedation, and apparently he has been speaking a little.

I'm still hugely worried about this whole situation, and it's having a huge effect on my family.